UK CS is prone to constant roster changes, and this upcoming UKIC League Divison 1 season is a prime example. Every team in the top UK league has made roster changes.
ANTARCTICA (previously Flowstate) had already made two roster changes in the off-season as they swapped out Alex “Byfield” Byfield and Maximilián “w8max” Macášek for ex-TLR duo Fizan “Fizzy” Anjum Antal “Cher1on” Lubbers. But moments before the new UKIC started, they made the bold decision to drop Lorenzo “LTH” Venanzi, the IGL who started the project.
The start of this iteration of Flowstate couldn’t have been any better, making this decision from an outside perspective even more intriguing. Flowstate qualified for UKIC League Divison 1 Season 5 after winning Divison 2 in Season 4 without breaking a sweat. They then enter 2025 on fire, easing past their opponents in ESEA Main Season 52 starting 5-1.
Then, in a shocking turn of events the night before UKIC starts LTH announces on X that he is LFT.
LTH causing upsets at EPIC.LAN 41 on Flowstate
Flowstate stated due to internal issues and disagreements with the approach to the game they decided to depart with LTH. They wanted to make this change sooner rather than later and settled on bringing in Ehren “Ehgren” Osborne to lead the team.
Ehgren recently competed with ‘The Boys’, later Radiance, excelling in UKIC League Divison 1 Season 3 while the team operated with a six-man roster. They ended the round-robin stage placing second but unfortunately fell in the semi-finals to Dreams To Legends. Alongside this, in ESEA Main Season 50 they kept up the form internationally as they rocked the regular season ending with a 10-4 record, but fell short in their fight for Advanced as they went 2-2 in playoffs.
Even though after this incredible season ‘The Boys’ signed to Radiance, the magic could not continue. Ehgren left during the season citing in an X post that he felt like he couldn’t improve himself while fixing the current problems.
Ehgren spoke to UKCSGO elaborating on what he said on social media:
At the start of the season we were playing really well but problems kept cropping up and even though they’re the greatest group of guys I could have assembled, I just had a gut feeling that it wouldn’t bring me to where I want to be. I’m a guy who wants to commit fully and I don’t want to play if I’m thinking about other opportunities as its just not fair to my teammates who put the trust in me.
Left with no IGL, Radiance decided to disband, seeing no benefit in continuing together. Now after the rise and subsequent fall of his last project, Ehgren will be looking to lead another team to glory.
Since the removal of LTH Flowstate has also rebranded to ANTARCTICA, a homage to the current kings of UK CS ALASKA.
This roster change has already started positively as they won their first two ESEA Main games meaning they have surged to an impressive 7-1 scoreline. Unfortunately, in UKIC League Divison 1 they cannot use Fizzy for the first four games because of the roster changes. Ironically this means ANTARCTICA will have to play with Byfield for those games because Fizzy does not qualify as a core player from last season – despite having played all the play-offs, those games were all 2-0 victories, giving him only six maps. Therefore, Byfield and w8max, who played eight maps each, constitute the core of ANTARCTICA from Season 4.
Byfield will be standing in for ANTARCTICA for the first four games in UKIC Division 1 Season 5
Understanding it was likely to be a difficult start, on debut day in UKIC Glitchtech wiped the floor with ANTARCTICA. A 13-5 beatdown ensued on Ancient, with the new IGL dropping seven kills.
Naturally, ANTARCTICA’s first few games in UKIC will be challenging, as they have to play almost half the season with a stand-in. This could make it more difficult for them to make the playoffs, as they will only be able to play five games with the full roster. However, they can take heart in the fact that teams have qualified for the playoffs with as few as three wins in past seasons. What does aid ANTARCTICA is that apart from ALASKA they are the only teams currently competing in UKIC Division 1 on a full-time basis, even without organisational backing.
ANTARCTICA’s next three games in UKIC League Divison 1 will be 8Sins, Reason Gaming and ALASKA. After these games, they will be able to play with Fizzy again for the final five games of the round-robin stage. These are subject to change but it could be a very difficult start to the season as they will be playing the two UKCSGO favourites for this UKIC season.
ANTARCTICA will compete in UKIC League Divison 1 Season 5 and ESEA Main Season 52 as:
Igor “igorek” Kochany
Joe “Joeski” Holmes
Fizan “Fizzy” Anjum
Antal “Cher1on” Lubbers
Ehren “Ehgren” Osborne
